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If SpaceX founder Elon Musk’s plan to establish
a city on Mars sounds like science fiction, then
consider the name of his first passenger ship.
The answer lies in “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the
Galaxy,” the comic series about the travels and
travails of Earth’s last surviving man.
Musk is leaning toward the name “Heart of
Gold,” the starship in the novel wtih Infinite
Improbability Drive.
“I like the fact that it’s driven by Infinite
Improbability,” Musk said in presenting
his long-awaited Mars colonization plan
this week, “because I think our ship is also
extremely improbable.”
“But the acronym is not the best,” he chuckled.
All aboard the HOG?
8

Image: Refugio Ruiz

9

The name generated applause at the
International Astronautical Congress in Mexico,
where Musk provided elaborate details of his bold
plans to fly scores of humans to Mars and set up a
self-sustaining city with 1 million people, as big as
San Jose, California.
For the past decade, Musk has borrowed from
science fiction and fantasy when naming
his rockets, engines, capsules and other
space doodads.
Another billionaire’s aerospace startup, Blue
Origin, pays homage to America’s original
Mercury astronauts with its names. Longestablished NASA and United Launch Alliance
prefer mythology and astronomy.
Musk already has plumbed “Star Wars” for names,
as well as work by the late Scottish science fiction
writer Iain M. Banks.
SpaceX’s Falcon rocket is a nod to the Millennium
Falcon piloted by Han Solo. It’s powered by
Merlin engines.
Then there are the two ocean platforms used
for booster landings after liftoff: “Just Read the
Instructions” and “Of Course I Still Love You” from
Banks’ 1988 novel “The Player of Games.”‘’The
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” dates back
further; the late English author Douglas Adams
published the novel in 1979, based on his hit
radio series.
And there’s the Dragon capsule currently used to
haul cargo to the International Space Station for
NASA and, in another year or two, U.S. astronauts.
The capsule was named for “Puff the Magic
Dragon,” a jab at those who scoffed when Musk
founded the company in 2002 and set the space
10

Image: Jae C. Hong

11

bar exceedingly high. SpaceX went on to become
the first private company to launch a spacecraft
into orbit and return it safely to Earth in 2010.
NASA traditionally has dipped into mythology
for names: Projects Mercury and Apollo, and
the Saturn V moon rocket. The space shuttles
were named after seafaring ships of yore:
Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis and
Endeavour. Shuttle prototype Enterprise was the
exception, named after the “Star Trek” starship at
fans’ request.
United Launch Alliance also favors mythology,
with its longtime Atlas rocket and even bigger,
still-in-development Vulcan.
Then there are the constellations for inspiration.
Orion, the hunter, is the spacecraft in which NASA
plans to send astronauts beyond low-Earth orbit,
most notably Mars. Cygnus, the swan, is Orbital
ATK’s capsule for space station shipments. Gemini,
the twins, was NASA’s two-man-per-capsule
program that bridged Mercury and Apollo.
Orbital ATK also turned to the heavens for naming
its Antares rocket after the superbright star.
At Blue Origin, the reusable suborbital rocket and
capsule are called New Shepard for Alan Shepard,
the first American to fly in space. The orbital
version will be New Glenn for John Glenn, the first
American to orbit the Earth. Company founder
Jeff Bezos suggests New Armstrong may soon be
in the offing for Apollo 11’s Neil Armstrong, the
first man to step onto the moon.
Optimistically, acctording to Musk, “Heart of
Gold” could blast off from Florida in late 2024 and
arrive at the red planet in 2025. A Mars-launching
window is available only every 26 months.
12

Image: Brendan Smialowski

13

“I would stress that’s an aspiration and within the
realm of possibility, but a lot of things need to go
right,” Musk said Tuesday.
Musk knows better than anyone things don’t
always go right in rocketry.
His Falcon 9 rockets are grounded for the second
time in a year, this time by a massive fireball
during prelaunch testing at the pad on Sept. 1.
“This is just a small thing on a long road,” Musk
told reporters after his address. “There will
probably be other failures in the future.”
He anticipates the risk will be greatest, in fact, for
the pioneers aboard “Heart of Gold.”

Online: SpaceX

14

Image: Jae C. Hong

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16

WHO INHERITS
A SELFIE? STATES
SEEK TO FILL
PRIVACY LAW GAPS

When a loved one dies, laws cover how their
houses, cars, and other property are passed
on to relatives. But the rules are murkier - and
currently far more restrictive - when it comes
to pictures on Facebook, emails to friends or
relatives and even financial records stored in
online cloud accounts.
Google, Facebook and other companies have
said a federal privacy law approved decades
before digital storage became common
prevents them from releasing electronic
memories or records unless the account owner
grants permission - even if the person is dead.
Without an estate plan, families must try to crack
their loved oneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s passwords or take the costly
step of litigating the matter to access photos
and emails - and some have, with little success.
17

The laws governing how to divide belongings
after someone dies have not caught up with the
technological advances that have permeated
the ways people communicate, but states have
begun trying to bridge that gap. This year, Illinois
was one of 19 states that passed similar laws to
clarify what internet companies can release after
someone dies and when information should
remain inaccessible.
“I post quite a bit on Facebook. I post a lot of
photos. If something were to happen to me,
maybe my wife would like to have access to
those photos,” said Rep. Emanuel Chris Welch,
a state legislator from suburban Chicago who
sponsored Illinois’ measure on the topic.

18

Image: Franklin Lugenbeel

With the new laws, unless a person expresses
otherwise, companies will release basic
information from a user, such as the personâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s
email contact list, to help find friends or gather
an inventory of a personâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s assets. But to get the
actual contents of the emails - even the subject
lines - or photos and documents stored in a
cloud service, people must proactively specify
who they want to have their digital belongings.
The federal Electronic Communications Privacy
Act, passed in 1986, doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t anticipate the
release of online information when executing
wills. Because probate law is typically left to the
states, the laws legislatures are passing could
effectively set new rules.
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The Chicago-based Uniform Law Commission
wrote the legislation states are passing with the
support of internet companies, but that wasn’t
always the case. Initially, the commission wanted
administrators of a person’s estate to have
access to everything from users’ accounts in
cases where someone did not leave instructions
about what to do with their digital assets.
Only one state, Delaware, managed to pass that
version of the commission’s proposal, but 27
legislatures tried and failed in 2014.
Carl Szabo, senior policy counsel at NetChoice,
an industry group that represents the interests
of such companies as Facebook, Google and
PayPal, said the revised legislation “balances the
needs of the bereaved with the privacy interests
of the account holders and the people with
whom they corresponded.”
West Virginia, Utah, and Iowa are among the
dozen other states that have drafted bills
seeking to join the 19 that enacted laws.
Facebook allows users to choose a “legacy
contact” to access their account, and Gmail
has an “account trustee” option. In instances
where people use those options, the
companies’ agreements with them will
supersede the state laws.
Even with the new laws, planning is necessary
at a time when many still don’t think about the
contents of their internet accounts as property.
“This is one of those many examples where the
law really gets its power by giving people the
knowledge that it exists,” said Washington state
Sen. Jamie Pedersen, the sponsor of the law
passed there this year.
21

The promise of privacy companies offer users
has led to heartache and frustration for the
families of account holders who have had to go
to court for the right to access their relative’s
emails and photos.
In 2005, Yahoo turned over more than 10,000
pages of emails in a CD to the family of Lance
Cpl. Justin Ellsworth, a marine from Michigan
whose family went to court for the material. But
others have not been successful.
The family of John Ajemain in Massachusetts
has been unable to get his emails from Yahoo
after his death in 2006. And in 2012, Facebook
quashed a subpoena from the family of Sahar
Daftary, a model who fell to her death from
an apartment building in Manchester, England,
in 2008.
In Virginia, after Ricky Rash’s 15-year-old son,
Eric, killed himself in 2011, Facebook provided a
CD with the contents of his account but not his
password. Rash still struggles with the notion
that for decades people have stumbled upon
mementos while cleaning out a late parents’
home, but in the digital age those keepsakes can
be out of reach.
“What is the difference of the shoebox full of
letters and pictures under the bed or in the
attic?” Ricky Rash asked. “You go in as a child
taking care of your parents’ estate, you may find
something in those memoirs that surprises you.”

Online:
States with legislation: http://bit.ly/1JHj4rv

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Image: Justin Sullivan

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ads@applemagazine.com

MindďŹ eldDigital

26

A YEAR OF
ALPHABET: GREAT
FOR GOOGLE,
LESS SO FOR
MOONSHOTS

Reorganizing itself under the umbrella company
Alphabet has done wonders for Google - but
less so for a grab bag of eclectic projects ranging
from robotic cars to internet-beaming balloons,
which are suffering costly growing pains.
A year after Alphabet took shape, Googleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s
revenue growth has accelerated - an unusual
development for a company of its size. That
success, however, also underscores Alphabetâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s
dependence on the fickle business of placing
digital ads in core Google products like search,
Gmail and YouTube video. As a result, it remains
vulnerable to swings in marketing budgets and
stiffening competition from another equally
ambitious rival, Facebook.
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Alphabet was supposed to speed the process
of turning offshoot businesses into new
technological jackpots. CEO Larry Page
predicted that separating these smaller
“moonshots” from the massive search-andadvertising business would spur innovation by
fostering a more entrepreneurial atmosphere.
That hasn’t happened during Alphabet’s
first year.

MAKING THE SHIFT
Until Page and fellow Google co-founder
Sergey Brin created Alphabet (which turns 1 on
Sunday), investors complained that Google was
spending too much on high-risk efforts. New
Chief Financial Officer Ruth Porat, who joined
Google in mid-2015, responded by reining
in expenses to keep them more in line with
revenue growth.
A few months later, Page announced the plan
to draw a dividing line between Google and
the far-flung forays Alphabet now refers to as
“Other Bets.” The mishmash includes smartthermostat maker Nest; the Fiber project, a highspeed internet service; and X lab, where the
company is building robotic cars and designing
the stratospheric balloons designed to beam
internet service to remote areas.
Other “Other Bets” include the biotech firm
Verily and medical-research firm Calico,
which has been studying ways to stop aging.
Alphabet also runs funds investing in startups
and mid-sized companies.
Page argued that fencing off Other Bets
would make Google “even better through
greater focus.”
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CORE SUCCESSES
That part of Page’s vision appears to be
panning out. After subtracting ad commissions,
Alphabet’s second-quarter revenue jumped 22
percent from the previous year to $17.5 billion. It
was the best performance in four years, adjusted
for changes in currency exchange rates, says RBC
analyst Mark Mahaney. Alphabet shares rose
25 percent over the past year, easily outpacing
major market indexes.
“Folks will be hard pressed to say that Alphabet
hasn’t been a success,” S&P Global Market
Intelligence analyst Scott Kessler says.
Alphabet Inc. declined to comment on its firstyear performance. But Sundar Pichai, who
became Google’s CEO in the restructuring, told
investors in July, “There is an amazing energy
right now.”
Among other things, Google has been
making strides in the still-nascent field of
artificial intelligence, hoping to create more
convenient services that attract even more
eyeballs for its advertisers.

STALLED BETS
But the demand for financial discipline and
accountability appears to have taken a toll on
Other Bets, which lose billions of dollars a year.
Key leaders have defected from Alphabet’s
high-profile self-driving car project and its Nest
line of internet-connected devices. Alphabet
also has scaled back plans to expand its Fiber
service to dozens of U.S. cities.
Creating a holding company also was supposed
to make it easier to diversify through major
Image: Paul Sakuma

31

acquisitions. But Alphabet’s biggest deal so
far has been the $625 million purchase of a
business software maker, Apigee Corp., which
had annual revenue of just $92 million.
Alphabet could make a much bigger splash
if buys Twitter, as recent reports say it is
considering. Twitter would give Alphabet a
popular publishing outlet to monitor trends,
mine data and sell even more ads. Alphabet
declined to discuss whether it’s mulling a
bid, which would be expensive; Twitter
might fetch between $20 and $30 billion,
despite its problems with user growth and
online harassment.

LOOKING BEYOND
Google is doing so well that investors
aren’t fixating on the losses with Other Bets,
Kessler says.
Only three Bets - Nest, Fiber and Verily - are
generating even a smidgen of revenue. In nine
months, the Other Bets companies have lost
a combined $2.6 billion on revenue of $410
million. Another big loss is expected in the
July-September quarter; the company reports
results on Oct. 27.
BGC analyst Colin Gillis still sees the gamble
as prudent and expects at least one of the
projects will come up with a breakthrough that
lessens Alphabet’s dependence on Google.
Optimism is fine as Google keeps growing at
a robust rate. But Wall Street will likely ratchet
up the pressure if the company falters and
nothing emerges from Other Bets to help pick
up the slack.

32

Image: David Paul Morris

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34

TOYOTA’S TINY ROBOT SELLS FOR
UNDER $400, TALKS, CAN’T DRIVE

The new robot from Japanese automaker Toyota
Motor Corp. can’t do much but chatter in a highpitched voice.
The 39,800-yen ($390), 10-centimeter (4-inch)
-tall, doll-like Kirobo Mini - whose name comes
from “kibo,” or “hope,” and “robot” - supposedly
has the smarts of a 5-year-old.
Fuminori Kataoka, general manager in charge
of the project, says its value is emotional, going
from home to car to the outdoors as a faithful
companion, although the owner must do all the
walking and driving.
Preorders start later this year. Shipments are
set for next year. No overseas sales are planned
so far. The company said it planned a gradual
rollout, initially limited to Tokyo and Aichi
prefecture in central Japan, near company
headquarters, to get feedback from consumers.
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36

Image: Kim Kyung-Hoon

It comes equipped with a camera, microphone
and Bluetooth, and connects to a smartphone,
which needs to be installed with a special
software application. It turns its head toward a
voice, although sometimes that function fails as
its voice recognition is far from perfect.
â&#x20AC;&#x153;Toyota has been making cars that have a lot of
valuable uses. But this time weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re just pushing
emotional value,â&#x20AC;? Kataoka said.
During an interview with The Associated Press,
the robot turned its head to the reporter and
then to Kataoka when he replied. But the first
time Kataoka asked the robot for its name, it
replied by asking what kind of car he had. It got
it right the second time. Kataoka just laughed.
The robot is not equipped with face recognition
technology, and so it cannot recognize different
people. The idea is one Kiribo Mini per person,
according to Toyota.

37

More people in Japan are living alone, including
the elderly and young singles. And they need
someone, or in this case something, to talk to,
Kataoka said.
But he was amazingly frank about how useless
his robot is.
“This is not smart enough to be called artificial
intelligence,” he said. “This is about the existence
of something you can talk to. A stuffed animal
might not answer back, but people do talk to
it, like my daughter once did this. But if it talked
back, wouldn’t that be better? And isn’t this
better than talking to a box?”
Some may find depressing, if not disturbing,
a vision of a society of lonely people turning
to dialogue with machines. But proponents
say that’s the reality, and that the technology
can serve as a tool to help care for the sick or
the elderly.
Naoki Mizushina, researcher at Tokyo-based MM
Research Institute, which studies the robotics
market, said the robot was too much like talking
toys, on sale at cheaper prices, and it seemed
to lack concrete functions to make it a big hit,
such as linking to online shopping or furnishing
convenient information.
“Will this take off? It might be tough,” he said.
But those who like gadgets - and there are
quite a few in Japan - may want one. Toyota
declined to say how many it planned to ready
for preorder, or how many it planned to sell in
the first year.
Toyota remains skeptical about how a partner
robot would fare abroad, although it remained
open to assessing such interest.
38

Imagage: Shuji Kajiyama

39

The idea of companion robots is already widely
accepted in Japan.
Japanese technology and telecom company
Softbank Corp. began selling its 198,000-yen
($1,960) Pepper humanoid last year. The first batch
of 1,000 sold out immediately, and it has sold 10,000
in Japan so far.
Robo Garage, headed by robot designer Tomotaka
Takahashi, has brought an array of Kirobo lookalikes,
many with more sophisticated functions at higher
prices, including Robi, which must be assembled.
Kataoka is hopeful Kirobo will be able to avoid the
fate of the Aibo dog-shaped robot from Sony Corp.,
which was discontinued in 2006, despite outcries
from fans. He cited advances in technology, such as
cloud-based upgrades.
Robotics is widely used in auto-assembly plants.
Toyota has shown other human-shaped robots
before, although this is the first being offered
to consumers.
Honda Motor Co., another Japanese automaker,
makes Asimo, a humanoid, which can run, pick up
objects and talk.
Artificial intelligence is increasingly a part of
the auto industry in another critical way - selfdriving vehicles. Vehicles are also increasingly
connected online.
Toyota, which manufactures the Prius hybrid,
Camry sedan and Lexus luxury models, remained
vague about how Kiribo Mini might work with its
autos, an obvious application.
The only examples it gave were that it might
say, “Oh, oh, oh, oh. Be careful” when it detects
sudden braking, or chirp, “Let’s take a break” when
the drive gets long.
40

Image: Shuji Kajiyama

41

Q&A: THE DATA
YOUR CAR
COLLECTS AND
WHO CAN USE IT

Your car knows more about you than you think.
Newer cars that connect to the internet can
collect vast amounts of data about drivers, such
as where you went to dinner, if you broke the
speed limit or if your seat belt was buckled.
When you buy a car, you cede data control to
your car company. Most automakers say they
won’t sell information without an owner’s
consent. But they’re not legally required to
inform you if they do.
Car data is about to become big business. A
new report from consulting firm McKinsey says
automotive data could be worth $450 billion
to $750 billion globally by 2030. Automakers,
insurers, high-tech firms, city planners and
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43

44

advertisers are among those who could use data
to refine services. Drivers could share data in
exchange for navigation systems, or they could
pay extra for perks like a parking spot finder.
Here’s a primer on the emerging issue of
connected-car data:
Q: Which cars collect data?
A: Just under 20 percent of new cars sold
globally now can be linked to the internet,
according to BI Intelligence. That figure is
expected to reach 75 percent by 2020.
For example, General Motors Co. will have 12
million connected vehicles by the end of this
year worldwide, which it says is the most for
any automaker.
Q: Do I own data that’s collected?
A: That’s unclear. Under federal law, drivers
own data stored in event data recorders, or
“black boxes,” which monitor vehicles in a crash.
Police and insurers need a driver’s consent - or
a court order - to get that data. But there are no
laws addressing data collected by automakers
through vehicle internet connections.
Q: How do automakers use the data?
A: It depends on the vehicle and the
manufacturer. Some turn data into notifications.
Cars can automatically signal for help if an air
bag deploys, for example. Some will send a
message if oil needs to be changed or a vehicle
is being recalled.
Tesla Motors has used data to reveal - sometimes
within hours of a crash - how fast the driver was
going and whether or not the company’s semiautonomous Autopilot system was engaged.
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Q: Can automakers sell data without
my knowledge?
A: They could, depending on language
in owners’ manuals. But under voluntary
principles established by the Alliance of
Automobile Manufacturers in 2014, most
agreed to get permission before sharing
anything about a driver’s location, health or
behavior with third parties.
Twenty companies - including GM, Toyota,
Ford, Hyundai and Mercedes-Benz - signed
that agreement, which is effective by the 2017
model year.
The policy doesn’t require consent for
automakers to share data with emergency
workers or to share it internally for research.
Q: Can I stop an automaker from collecting
my data?
A: Most automakers let owners opt out, but
that’s usually buried in fine print, says Khaliah
Barnes, former associate director of the
nonprofit Electronic Privacy Information Center,
who now works on privacy issues for the
federal government.
Under the 2014 agreement, automakers
committed to providing clear notices about data,
the reasons for collecting it and where it can
be shared. But that’s not always happening. For
example, some GM owners’ manuals tell people
about data storage, but they must track down
separate policies to learn more, Barnes says.
Q: Are there benefits to sharing data?
A: Yes. Upon a driver’s request, GM will send
driving data to insurance companies like
Progressive and State Farm to see if the driver
Image: Daimler

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qualifies for lower rates. OnStar will send
coupons to your phone for businesses along
your route.
Tesla collects data in order to improve cars via
software updates.
There is evidence people aren’t fretting about
data sharing. McKinsey found 79 percent of
the 3,000 customers it interviewed in the U.S.,
China and Germany were willing to share. More
than 70 percent were willing to pay for dataenabled services that would save time, like a
parking spot finder.
Q: What’s the downside to sharing data?
A: Insurance companies could require drivers
to let them monitor driving before they
grant a policy. They could see if you go fast
around curves, accelerate too quickly or if
you don’t wear a seat belt. That could raise
rates. You could also get overwhelmed with
unwanted coupons.
Q: What’s the future of car data sharing?
Mark Thomas, head of connected car marketing
for Cisco-Jasper, predicts automakers will
eventually go from charging monthly internet
fees to monetizing the service other ways,
perhaps by selling data. Internet costs could
be split, with part going to an insurer, music
provider or other data user. Without a monthly
charge, more drivers would sign up, he says.
Currently, data charges can be steep. New GM
vehicles come with a free OnStar Guidance Plan
trial. It automatically calls emergency services
after a crash, tracks and slows down a car if it’s
stolen and provides hands-free calling. But it
costs $34.99 per month when the trial is over.
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Image: Jack Taylor

WIKILEAKS’
ASSANGE
PROMISES LEAKS
ON US ELECTION,
GOOGLE

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange promised
“significant” disclosures on subjects including
the U.S. election and Google in the coming
weeks as the secret-spilling group marked its
10th anniversary on Tuesday.
Assange said WikiLeaks plans to start publishing
new material starting this week, but wouldn’t
specify the timing and subject. Speaking by
video link to an anniversary news conference
in Berlin, he said the leaks include “significant
material” on war, arms, oil, internet giant Google,
the U.S. election and mass surveillance.
51

WikiLeaks hopes “to be publishing every week
for the next 10 weeks,” Assange said.
WikiLeaks, which released Democratic National
Committee emails days before the party’s
national convention earlier this year, wouldn’t
say who or what campaign would be affected by
the upcoming U.S. election leaks. Assange said
speculation that he or WikiLeaks intend to harm
Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton is “false.”
Asked whether he feels any personal affinity
with Clinton’s Republican rival, Donald Trump,
Assange replied: “I feel personal affinity really, I
think, with all human beings.”
“I certainly feel sorry for Hillary Clinton and
Donald Trump,” he added. “These are two
people that are tormented by their ambitions in
different ways.”
Sweden is seeking Assange’s extradition in a
rape investigation. He hasn’t left the Ecuadorean
Embassy in London since 2012. Assange denies
the rape allegation and says he fears being
extradited to the U.S. to face espionage charges
if he leaves.

52

Image: Leon Neal

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‘CRAZY’ NEW FEATURES FOR
VENERABLE APP
With Apple widely believed to be turning to
software to boost its global sales and market
share, there has surely never been a bigger
time for its messaging application to come into
its own. The Messages app has been around
since the earliest days of the iPhone and is now
available on the company’s iPhone, iPad and
Mac lineup. Much more impressive, however,
is the fact that it is now used to send over two
billion messages every single day across half a
billion iOS devices.
With the launch of iOS 10, however, Apple is
taking Messages to the next level. In addition
to a range of new features – such as rich videos,
automatic video playback and stickers – the app
now has its own standalone App Store, adding
yet another monetization platform for the
Cupertino firm.
Stiff competition from the likes of Skype,
WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger has left
Apple braced for its next battle – and it’s even
launched a new advertising campaign with
a balloon-inspired commercial to encourage
people to switch to the app. Here, we delve
deeper into Messages, look at its new features
and consider whether it will be able to compete
with the big guns of the messaging world.

iOS 10 HAS CHANGED MESSAGES
FOR THE BETTER
With the likes of Facebook Messenger regularly
updating their platforms, Apple had to do
something if it wanted to compete. Sure enough,
with iOS 10, hyperlinks are now rich, videos
56

iPhone 7 - Balloons

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58

automatically embed inline and Apple Music
tracks play within messaging frames. There is
also a bigger emphasis on emoji, animations,
bubbles and text effects, as well as the ability
to send secret messages with ‘invisible ink’, the
option to draw directly on your phone and even
the ability to send your heartbeat to a loved one.
Although some have labeled the new features
“gimmicky”, it seems very clear to us that the
updated Messages app takes communication to
the next level, akin to Facebook Messenger and
other leading platforms.
By pulling down on the ‘send’ button, you can
now send balloons or laser lights alongside
your messages, while opening a new ‘draw’
window enables you to send handwritten
messages in a variety of colours and styles.
Such features are uncharacteristic for Apple,
which usually relies on clean-cut designs, so the
update is a clear indicator that the firm is ready
to adapt and appeal to the desires of the mass
market, however much some may accuse of it of
“dumbing down” its original offering.

SECURITY IS ANOTHER KEY PRIORITY
Apple faced one of its biggest challenges
to date last year when the U.S. government
asked a court to order the firm to create a new
version of its operating system for the FBI. The
government effectively asked Apple to remove
security features to enable access to individuals’
files, messages and Internet history, a request
repeatedly refused by the Cupertino firm. Apple
argued that complying with such a demand
would set “a legal precedent that would
expand the powers of the government”,
describing this as “a very dangerous precedent”.
59

Image: iMore

60

Mobile messaging security has long been
a hot topic, with WhatsApp introducing
an end-to-end encryption feature earlier
this year to hush concerns from its users.
Such technology means that only users can
read the messages sent using the app, and
that WhatsApp has no control or access to
the information sent between users. Nor
is Facebook-owned WhatsApp the only
messaging app to bolster its safety features
this year, as Facebook Messenger now boasts
a “secret conversations” feature, allowing
its users to send private information in
separate chat windows.
The security of Apple’s iMessage instant
messaging service was a subject of controversy
back in 2014, prompting the company to
provide more details about its inner workings.
Much work has taken place since then to improve
the general security of iOS, including making
two-factor authentication available on its
Apple TV, Apple Watch, Mac, iPhone and
iPad lines in 2015. Even with the release of
iOS 10, there have been some suggestions
of a continued vulnerability, although it is
expected that a security patch will be released
by Apple in the coming days and weeks.

THE NEW iMESSAGE IS ALREADY
IN THE MAINSTREAM
Despite Apple only having released iOS 10
three weeks ago, the new iMessage service is
dominating the world of mobile messaging.
55% of all compatible devices are now
running iOS 10, and an impressive 1,650
iMessage applications and sticker packs
have already been approved for inclusion in
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the new standalone iMessage App Store. This
Store, which is separate to Appleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s world-famous
main App Store, offers keyboard customizations,
stickers, GIFs, emoji and more, giving users even
greater flexibility over their customization and
messaging experience.

APPLE HAS TOUGH COMPETITION
Despite the fact that Appleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Messages app
comes preinstalled on every iDevice, the
firm still has tough competition from the
likes of Facebook and Google over their
respective messaging applications. Facebook,
for example, has over 1.72 billion users
globally, while its standalone WhatsApp
messaging service has over a billion users
around the world.
Facebook Messenger is even seeing growth in
the third world, with a slimmed-down version
of the app offered for older smartphones.
Dubbed Messenger Lite, this app reduces the
amount of storage space and mobile data
bandwidth required and appears to have
been designed to drive adoption of Facebook
services in countries such as Kenya, Tunisia,
Malaysia, Sri Lanka and Venezuela.
Facebook is clearly the biggest player when it
comes to messaging - not least given that in
addition to Messenger, the social giant is the
owner of WhatsApp. Broadening its range of
services beyond text and images, Facebook now
offers a range of features within its Messenger
app, most recently its new Bots for Messenger
feature, which allows third-party developers
to create artificial intelligence bots for booking
cabs, taking pizza orders or paying loved ones.
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Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp are also
both known for their accessibility. Both services
are accessible across Android, iOS, Windows
Mobile and the web, whereas Apple’s Messages
app is exclusively for iOS and macOS. Despite
strong calls for Apple to launch an Android app
for its iMessage service, the Cupertino firm has
so far outright refused to do so.
Relatively new to the market is Allo, Google’s
latest attempt at a messaging application.
This app integrates stickers, doodles, emojis,
text and the latest edition of Google Assistant,
Google’s answer to Siri. This artificial intelligence
bot gets smarter the more you use it – it
remembers your name, favorite color, favorite
sports teams and a load of other information to
deliver a genuinely personalized service. But it
remains to be seen whether Allo will truly make
a splash, or instead follow in the footsteps of
its now-discontinued predecessors, Google
Buzz and Google Wave.

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Whatever approach Apple is taking to its bid
for messaging world domination, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s clear
that the firm is placing greater emphasis on
its smartphone applications and less on its
hardware. With new search advertisements
coming to the App Store this month and the
dedicated App Store for the new Messages
system already making a big impression, it
seems that Apple has never before had such
a formidable range of revenue streams. It has
even been reported that the firm is planning
to remove the best selling â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;prankâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; sticker
pack Phoneys from the iMessage App Store,
which is yet another indicator that Apple still has
greater control over its core offerings than many
of its competitors could even dream of.

by Benjamin Kerry & Gavin Lenaghan

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FACEBOOK
LAUNCHES ‘LITE’
VERSION OF
MESSENGER
OVERSEAS

Facebook is launching a “lite” version of it
Messenger chat app. It is aimed at emerging
markets, where many people use older phones
that don’t have enough room to store or ability
to run the full-featured application due to slower
internet speeds or other issues.
“Messenger Lite” will be available on Android
devices in Kenya, Tunisia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and
Venezuela beginning on Monday. The company
did not say when it would be available in other
countries or whether it is also coming to Apple
devices (although Android is far more popular in
emerging markets than even older iPhones).
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There is already a “Facebook Lite” available for
people whose phones are too old or simple to
run the full-fledged Facebook. Messenger Lite is
a similarly slimmed-down version of Messenger.
It will let people send text, photos and links but
won’t do video calls, for example.
The move comes as the social media giant moves
to force users to adopt Messenger if they want to
send each other direct messages, instead of the
main Facebook site or app. It is working: more
than 1 billion people use Messenger each month.
For a while, there was a loophole - you could
log in to Facebook’s mobile website to access
messages. But Facebook is ending this option,
too, so Messenger will be people’s only option.
David Marcus, head of messaging products
at Facebook Inc., said in an interview that
Messenger’s goal is to be a “product for everyone,
not only people who can afford a higher-end
device and more expensive data plan.”
He called the web-based messaging experience
on Facebook a “remnant of the past” and
added that he “can’t think of any other mobile
messaging service that has a web version.”
Facebook, he said, decided on the five initial
countries to launch Messenger Lite in because
there are a lot of Messenger users in these
countries on older devices.
WhatsApp, the messaging app owned by
Facebook but operated as a separate entity, is
also popular in emerging markets. Marcus said
people use the apps for different reasons and
they are not in direct competition. WhatsApp
also has more than 1 billion users, and many
people use both services.
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YAHOO ADDS
NEW SOCIAL
FEATURES TO
ITS RENAMED
MOBILE APP

Yahoo has overhauled its main app for
smartphones and tablets by emphasizing
“social” features aimed at people who like to
share and chat about news topics online.
The revamped Yahoo app, now called Yahoo
Newsroom, will augment its general news feed
with more than 200 specialized channels that
users can choose to follow on particular topics
- such as a favorite celebrity, a political issue of
interest or a breaking news event. The format
encourages users to post comments on news
items Yahoo displays for each topic, as well as
on links that users find and re-post from other
news sites.
Yahoo’s new app is part of a broader strategy
that the company hopes will increase
“engagement” and social interaction on its
websites and mobile apps, which are struggling
Image: Karen Bleier

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to compete for advertising dollars that have
increasingly flowed to social media sites
like Facebook.
The overhaul comes as Yahoo is preparing to
join a stable of internet properties owned by
Verizon, which is buying Yahoo for $4.8 billion.
That deal is set to close early next year, but
Yahoo says the redesign was in the works before
the sale was negotiated.
The new app will give prominence to stories
that attract more comments from users, among
other factors. While many people already
turn to Facebook and Twitter for sharing and
commenting on news stories, Yahoo says its
service is different because the Newsroom
app features only â&#x20AC;&#x153;publicâ&#x20AC;? news, without posts
from individual users about their family, pets or
personal activities.

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REPORT:
YAHOO GAVE US
INTEL AGENCIES
ACCESS TO EMAIL

Yahoo reportedly scanned hundreds of
millions of email accounts at the behest of
U.S. intelligence or law enforcement. The
scans, reported by Reuters, allegedly selected
incoming messages that contained a string of
unknown characters.
Yahoo did not deny the report, saying only that
it is a â&#x20AC;&#x153;law abiding company, and complies with
the laws of the United States.â&#x20AC;?
According to the Tuesday report, Yahoo acceded
to a 2015 government directive to give email
access to the National Security Agency or the
FBI. Reuters cited anonymous sources including
two former employees and another person with
knowledge of the events.
Yahoo continues to face questions about a
breach in 2014 that compromised at least 500
million accounts.
The Department of Justice and the FBI did not
immediately respond to requests for comment.
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WHAT’S AT STAKE
AS US CEDES
INTERNET CONTROL

The US government’s contract to control the
internet’s ‘address book’ has expired after 47
years, transferring management of the Internet’s
unique identifiers to the private-sector.
The US Department of Commerce National
Telecommunications and Information
Administration (NTIA) had a contract with the
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and
Numbers (ICANN) to perform the Internet
Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) functions.
Will you even notice? Probably not, although
the subject has become a hot political issue for
some conservatives. Here’s a look at the systems
in question and what’s at stake for internet users.

WAIT, THE U.S. GOVERNMENT
CONTROLS THE INTERNET?
No single government, business, organization
or individual controls all the computers and
pipelines making up the internet. But the
network relies on an addressing system called
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the domain name system, or DNS, which
includes directories that help route data like
email and web requests where it needs to go.
And someone needs to run the DNS.
Control over the DNS mostly amounts to
deciding what gets included in those directories.
For instance, can a Google critic register googlesucks.org, or does Google get first dibs? What
about creating a domain name suffix just for
porn sites? It has nothing to do, though, with
what websites publish. All it does is make sure
your browser can find those sites.

SO DOES THE U.S. RUN THAT SYSTEM?
Since 1998, an organization called the Internet
Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers
has overseen the directories, mostly by setting
rules and creating mechanisms for settling
disputes. But ICANN also has a boss at the U.S.
Commerce Department.
It’s a historical arrangement stemming from U.S.
funding for the internet’s early development.
The domain name system we’re familiar with
dates back to 1984, long before “Pokemon Go” or
even Amazon.com came along.

WHY DO PEOPLE CARE
ABOUT THE TRANFER?
The U.S. has been in charge of the DNS system
for more than three decades. Plans to privatize
control of these functions by transferring them
to a nonprofit oversight organization have been
in the works since the late 1990s.
As this Saturday’s transfer date approached,
some Republicans in Congress raised late
objections, terming it a “giveaway” to the rest of
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the world. But they failed to block the move in a
spending bill to keep the government operating.
Late Wednesday, the attorneys general from
Texas, Arizona, Oklahoma and Nevada - all
Republicans - filed a federal lawsuit to block
the transfer because of worries it might affect
government websites ending in â&#x20AC;&#x153;.gov.â&#x20AC;?

WHY THE U.S. IS BACKING AWAY
ICANN has taken its share of complaints over
the years, often for being slow to adapt as the
internet grew. (One common charge: It took
too long to permit domain names in languages
other than English.) And many countries believe
that as long as the U.S. retains oversight - even if
it leaves day-to-day management to ICANN - the
internet cannot be truly international.
Some governments have sought to transfer
control to a U.N agency, the International
Telecommunication Union. But critics objected to
letting authoritarian regimes like Iran and China
get equal votes on matters affecting speech.
Instead, the U.S. government insisted that
businesses, academics and other parties also
get seats at the table. ICANN already had such
a multi-party approach. The U.S. agreed in
June to relinquish control to ICANN after the
organization created additional mechanisms to
resolve disputes.

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WILL ANYTHING CHANGE FOR USERS?
Not much. The directories themselves arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t
changing, and people donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t interact directly
with domain names as often in the era of
Google searches, phone apps and Facebook
links. In fact, few people would even know
about the transition were it not for the noise
from Capitol Hill.

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REPUBLICANS RAISE ALARM
Republican critics claim that the transition would
give countries like Russian and China the ability
to control online speech - something supporters
of the transition plan deny given the multi-party
approach. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas is among those
who tried to block the transition as part of a
short-term spending bill to keep the government
running past Friday.
Donald Trump also came out in support of Cruz, his
one-time rival for the GOP presidential nomination.
Ironically, those wanting the U.S. to maintain its
oversight role includes a group called Americans for
Limited Government. Their efforts failed, though, as
budget negotiators left out the transition ban.

A LAST-DITCH LAWSUIT
Four state attorneys general asked a federal
court in Galveston, Texas, to block the move.
Commerce and ICANN have delegated control
of the “.gov” suffix to the U.S. General Services
Administration. GSA handles day-to-day
management of which government websites
can use the suffix. Though the lawsuit claims
that GSA decisions are submitted to ICANN for
approval, that isn’t the case. ICANN does have
trademark and other policies governing sites
using particular suffixes, but they cover suffixes
available to anyone. The “.gov” suffix is restricted
to government agencies in the U.S.
The lawsuit also claims that ICANN could delete
“.gov” entirely from the directories or delegate
management of “.gov” websites to someone
else. That’s possible, but highly unlikely, and the
attorneys general offer no evidence that ICANN
would do either.
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Independence Day:
Resurgence
20 years after the events of the first
Independence Day, aliens make yet another
invasion – can humanity protect itself and
defeat them once more?

FIVE FACTS:
1. The new movie’s $200,000,000
budget surpasses that of its predecessor
by $125,000,000.
2. It is directed and written by Roland
Emmerich, the director of the original
Independence Day movie in 1996.
3. This is the first of at least two planned
sequels to Independence Day, originally
titled Independence Day Forever Part 1 and
Independence Day Forever Part 2.

4. Actor Liam Hemsworth has spoken about
having nightmares during production
involving himself and co-star Jeff Goldblum
being pursued by aliens.

192 Ratings

5. Emmerich has said that Independence Day
3 “will be an intergalactic journey. It’ll
be [set] maybe a year or two later, not 20
years [on].”

Rotten Tomatoes

32

%
93

Cast Interview

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95

Swiss Army Man
This quirky comedy-drama movie sees a
man marooned on an island befriend a dead
corpse that he reanimates from the dead –
and which may or may not be instrumental
in helping him to escape.

FIVE FACTS:
1. The film stars Paul Dano, Daniel Radcliffe
and Mary Elizabeth Winstead.
2. Directors Dan Kwan and Daniel
Scheinert won the Best Director or
Directing award in the 2016 Sundance
Film Festival’s US Dramatic category.
3. However, the film’s at-times juvenile
humor - including its fart jokes - prompted
many audience members at its Sundance
screening to walk out of the theater.
4. The movie was filmed in the Bay Area
forests near Half Moon Bay, California.
5. Variety critic Peter Debruge has observed
that “this movie wears its weirdness as a
badge of honor - as well it should.”

22, A Million
Bon Iver
The indie folk band founded by Justin Vernon
in 2007 releases its long-awaited third album
to critical acclaim, following a premiere at the
singer-songwriter’s Eaux Claires Music Festival.

1. Bon Iver claimed the 2012 Grammy Awards
for Best New Artist and Best Alternative Music
Album for the Bon Iver, Bon Iver album.
2. Vernon is also a member of the bands
Volcano Choir, The Shouting Matches
and Gayngs.
3. Vernon collaborated with Kanye West to
provide vocals for several songs on West’s My
Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.
4. He has also worked with members
of Arcade Fire, The National and Sufjan
Stevens’ band, with some joining him for
live performances.
5. On December 15, 2011, Pitchfork.com
awarded Bon Iver, Bon Iver the number one
album of 2011 award.

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“33 “GOD””

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A Seat at the Table
Solange
The third studio album from Solange offers
effortlessly enjoyable pop and R&B, while also
tackling such issues as identity, race and grief.

FIVE FACTS:
1. The album features collaborations with Lil
Wayne, Kelly Rowland and Q-Tip.
2. Solange has reportedly been working on
the album since 2013.
3. She has written music for ex-Destiny’s
Child band members Rowland and Michelle
Williams, among others.
4. Knowles and sister Beyoncé model
for their family’s clothing line, House of
Deréon, named after their grandmother,
Agnéz Deréon.
5. She is married to music video director Alan
Ferguson, who has worked on videos for Fall
Out Boy, Beyoncé and Katy Perry.

104

Genre: R&B/Soul
Released: Sep 30, 2016
21 Songs
Price: $10.99

925 Ratings

“A Seat at the Table”

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“Don’t Touch My Hair”

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BOX OFFICE TOP 20:
BURTON AND
‘PECULIAR CHILDREN’
ARE NO. 1

In a matchup of $100 million-plus films,
Tim Burton’s “Miss Peregrine’s Home for
Peculiar Children” topped Peter Berg’s
“Deepwater Horizon.”
Both were high-priced original films that
earned warm reviews. But “Miss Peregrine’s
Home for Peculiar Children” found more
interest with North American moviegoers,
earning $28.9 million, according to final studio
figures Monday. The film, starring Eva Green
and Asa Butterfield, is adapted from Ransom
Rigg’s popular young-adult novel.
“Deepwater Horizon,” about the 2010 oil rig
explosion that resulted in one of the worst
environmental disasters, had more difficulty
in its debut. The Lionsgate release took in
$20.2 million.
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The top 20 movies at U.S. and Canadian theaters
Friday through Sunday, followed by distribution
studio, gross, number of theater locations,
average receipts per location, total gross and
number of weeks in release, as compiled
Monday by comScore:

Universal and Focus are owned by NBC Universal, a unit of Comcast
Corp.; Sony, Columbia, Sony Screen Gems and Sony Pictures Classics
are units of Sony Corp.; Paramount is owned by Viacom Inc.; Disney,
Pixar and Marvel are owned by The Walt Disney Co.; Miramax is owned
by Filmyard Holdings LLC; 20th Century Fox and Fox Searchlight are
owned by 21st Century Fox; Warner Bros. and New Line are units
of Time Warner Inc.; MGM is owned by a group of former creditors
including Highland Capital, Anchorage Advisors and Carl Icahn;
Lionsgate is owned by Lions Gate Entertainment Corp.; IFC is owned by
AMC Networks Inc.; Rogue is owned by Relativity Media LLC

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FUTURISTIC DUBAI DREAMS OF
HYPERLOOP TRANSIT TUBES

A network of tubes whisking passengers across
a country at close to the speed of sound may
seem like a sci-fi pipe dream, but in the already
futuristic city of Dubai it would fit right in.
The city-state just hosted a two-day competition
for designs related to a high-speed system
known as a hyperloop, in which levitating pods
powered by electricity and magnetism would
hurtle through low-friction pipes at a top speed
of 1,220 kph (760 mph).
The idea, first proposed by Tesla co-founder Elon
Musk in 2013, is still being tested. But Dubai
has already partnered with Los Angeles-based
Hyperloop One to examine possible lines going
to the United Arab Emiratesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; capital, Abu Dhabi,
and elsewhere.
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At a presentation Tuesday, Hyperloop One
suggested such a network could include an
undersea tunnel connecting Abu Dhabi to Doha,
Qatar, with a trip time of just under 22 minutes.
The network could extend to the island nation of
Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.
“Imagine that you can live in Riyadh, work in
Dubai, have your dinner in Abu Dhabi and watch
a movie in Qatar,” Saif al-Aleeli, the young CEO of
the Dubai Future Foundation, which hosted the
competition, told The Associated Press. “Dubai is
trying, as a mission, to prove that concept.”
The heart of this effort can be seen around the
Emirate Towers, where the office of Dubai’s ruler,
Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum,
looks out on a glass skyline that was mainly
built in the last 15 years. Outside, construction
has begun on the Museum of the Future . The
world’s first office entirely built of material made
by 3-D printerssits nearby.

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A mall underneath the towers looks like one
of Dubai’s many luxury shopping centers until
you see the robot assisting customers at a local
bank branch. Just around the corner is the
Dubai Future F oundation, the government
initiative that helped sponsor the hyperloop
competition with the city-state’s Roads and
Transportation Authority.
Sheikh Mohammed visited the foundation
Monday, putting on a virtual-reality headset and
walking among its chic offices filled with 3-D
printers and other gadgets.
“Our goal is to anticipate challenges and explore
future investment opportunities,” a message on
Sheikh Mohammed’s official Twitter account
later read. “We all need to think afresh as we
develop for the future.”
It’s unclear how much a regional hyperloop
network would cost - or who would pay for it at
a time when Gulf budgets are strained by low
global oil prices.
But Dubai is already home to the world’s tallest
building, the longest driverless metro line and
long-haul carrier Emirates. A hyperloop network
could cement its status as a global transit hub
for decades to come.
Government-backed port operator DP World has
held talks with Hyperloop One about cutting
transport times for its cargo, said Chris Vasquez,
the director of product development for the
hyperloop company. Such a system could be in
place in Dubai as early as 2020, he said.
“This is a place where big things happen,”
Vasquez said. “They don’t get bogged down
by regulations, not that those things aren’t
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important and don’t deserve due diligence, but
we’ve all seen projects stalled by over-crippling
regulatory environments where it just stalls for
years and years and years.”
At the ceremony Tuesday, selected
groups involved in the 48-hour hyperloop
projectpresented ideas for a possible track
between Al Maktoum International Airport at
Dubai World Central, Dubai International Airport
and Fujairah International Airport. Under their
plans, the hyperloop trip of some 145 kilometers
(90 miles) over a mountain range would be 10
minutes or less, compared to the current hour
and 20 minutes by road.
Focusing less on the science, those involved
offered visions of hyperloop stations and seating
inside bullet-shaped transit cars. A team from
Paris-based transit company Systra won the
competition, walking away with a certificate and
a crystal trophy resembling Dubai’s Burj Khalifa,
the world’s tallest building.
But among the contest’s competitors were few
Emiratis, though others attended the event
watched over by white-gloved Asian waiters
serving hors d’oeuvres. Asked about the
low participation, al-Aleeli, the Dubai Future
Foundation CEO, said Emirati university students
on hand for the event would help lead the UAE
in future innovations.
“We are paving the road to build the right future
for them,” he said.

The company responsible for spreading topof-the-line message encryption across the
internet has had a first legal skirmish with the
U.S. government.
Open Whisper Systems - whose Signal app
pioneered the end-to-end encryption technique
now used by a swath of messaging services was subpoenaed for information about one
of its users earlier this year, according to legal
correspondence released Tuesday. The American
Civil Liberties Union, which represented the
company, said the small San Francisco firm
didn’t produce the user’s name, address, call logs
or other details requested by the government.
“That’s not because Signal chose not to
provide logs of information,” ACLU lawyer Brett
Kaufman said in a telephone interview. “It’s just
that it couldn’t.”
Created by anarchist yachtsman Moxie
Marlinspike and a crew of surf-happy
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developers, Signal has evolved from a niche
app used by dissidents and protest leaders
into the foundation stone for the encryption of
huge tranches of the world’s communications
data. When any one of WhatsApp’s billion-plus
users sees a discreet lock icon with the words,
“Messages you send to this chat and calls are
now secured with end-to-end encryption,”
they have Signal to thank . Facebook’s
recently launched private chat feature, Secret
Conversations , uses Signal’s technology; so
too does the incognito mode on Google’s
messenger service Allo.
Signal remains a favorite among securityminded users, among them National Security
Agency leaker Edward Snowden. A key selling
point has been Open Whisper Systems’ refusal
to retain nearly any form of metadata - the
often revealing who-how-when-where of calls
and messages.
“We try to have as little information as
possible,” Marlinspike said in an interview
(over Signal, naturally.)
Kaufman said that the request - and Signal’s
response to it - was a model for companies
hoping to insulate themselves from the
fraught process of handing over their
customers’ data.
“We hope it’s an example for other companies
how they can continue to stand for customers’
privacy,” he said.

Online:
Legal correspondence released by the ACLU:
https://www.documentcloud.org
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Actors yearn for Oscars, athletes crave Olympic
gold - but for scientists, writers and champions
of world peace, there’s no bigger honor than a
Nobel Prize.
The Nobel judges will announce the winners of
the 2016 awards beginning this week, one prize
a day, starting with medicine on Monday. Here
are five things to know about the prestigious
prizes, created by 19th-century Swedish
industrialist Alfred Nobel.

WHAT’S THE BIG DEAL?
The prestige of the Nobel Prizes comes down to
history and cash, says Gustav Kallstrand, curator
of the Nobel Museum in Stockholm.
Each award is currently worth 8 million Swedish
kronor - about $930,000, making the Nobel
Prizes among the world’s most lucrative awards.
Kallstrand says when they were first handed out
in 1901, the prize money equaled about 20 years
of a professor’s salary.
Today the money is secondary, he said. For
many, the biggest reward is joining the likes of
Albert Einstein, Marie Curie, Martin Luther King
Jr., and Ernest Hemingway in the pantheon of
Nobel laureates.

WHY THE HUSH-HUSH?
Ask Nobel judges about the front-runners for
this year’s awards and they will clam up as if
they’re protecting secret nuclear codes.
The Nobel statutes prohibit them from
discussing any nominations - besides the
winners - for half a century.

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Image: Fernando Vergara

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Image: Alexander Mahmoud

Kallstrand says there are two reasons for this
secrecy. One is that judges want to spare those
who were nominated, but didn’t win, the stress
of feeling like they lost. “The Nobel Prize isn’t a
competition in that sense,” he says.
The other reason is to safeguard the
independence of the Nobel judges. In the early
days of the prize, Kallstrand says, the world
scientific community was quite small, so the
judges often knew the nominees and those who
nominated them. By keeping the deliberations
secret, judges could feel free to speak candidly
about the candidates.

WHO ARE THE JUDGES?
In his 1895 will, Nobel specified which
institutions should select the winners.
For the medicine award, he gave the task to
Stockholm’s Karolinska Institute. The Royal
Swedish Academy of sciences got the physics
and chemistry awards and the Swedish
Academy, which is a different body, got the
literature prize.
In a decision lamented by many a Swede, he
gave the peace prize - the most high-profile
trophy of them all - to a panel selected by the
Parliament of neighboring Norway.
Nobel never explained his reasoning, but
Norway and Sweden were joined in a union at
the time. Also, Norway was a small, peaceful
country on Europe’s periphery. Perhaps Nobel
felt it was more suitable for a peace prize
than Sweden, which had a history of military
aggression against its neighbors, and coerced
Norway into a union after losing control of
Finland to Russia.
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Image: Alex Ljungdahl

IS THE ECONOMICS AWARD A
NOBEL PRIZE?
Strictly speaking, no. Nobel didn’t mention a
prize for economics in his will. It was created in
1968 in his memory by the Riksbank, the central
bank of Sweden.
Still, the economics award is handed out
with the others, with the same pomp and
fanfare, at the annual award ceremony on
Dec. 10, the anniversary of Nobel’s death
in 1896.
But the Nobel Foundation, which administers
the awards, still won’t call it a Nobel Prize.
Officially it’s called the Sveriges Riksbank
Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of
Alfred Nobel.

HOW DO YOU WIN A NOBEL PRIZE?
Laureates often get asked this question, and
their standard reply is “work hard and follow
your passion.”
It helps, of course, to make a groundbreaking
discovery like X-rays or penicillin.
In the science categories, winners often have
to wait decades before the Nobel judges feel
confident their discovery has withstood the test
of time.
It’s different for the peace prize, which is often
intended as a shot in the arm to someone in the
midst of a struggle for peace or democracy. That
explains why some peace prizes, in hindsight,
can seem a bit premature - like the 1994 award
for a Middle East peace agreement that is now
in tatters.

137

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139

Like a busy city, a cell works better if it can
dispose of and recycle its garbage. Now a
Japanese scientist has won the Nobel Prize in
medicine for showing how that happens.
The research may pay off in treatments for
diseases such as cancer, Parkinson’s and
Type 2 diabetes.
Yoshinori Ohsumi, 71, of the Tokyo Institute
of Technology, was cited Monday for “brilliant
experiments” that illuminated autophagy, in
which cells gobble up damaged or worn-out
pieces of themselves. Autophagy means “
self-eating.”
That process helps keep cells healthy by
producing nutrients and building blocks for
renewal, making way for new cellular structures
and clearing out invading germs and clumps of
proteins that could cause disease.
Abnormalities in autophagy (aw-TAH’-fuh-jee)
occur in several diseases, including Parkinson’s,
Alzheimer’s, diabetes and cancer, and more
than 40 studies in humans are under way to test
drugs to boost or depress the process, Nobel
officials said.
Cancer cells, for example, take advantage of
autophagy to promote their own survival.
Many research groups are exploring a strategy
of fighting the disease by reducing these cells’
use of the cleanup process, said Eileen White, a
researcher at the Rutgers Cancer Institute in New
Brunswick, New Jersey.
Ohsumi said he never thought he would win
a Nobel for his work, which involved studying
yeast under the microscope day after day
for decades.

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“As a boy, the Nobel Prize was a dream, but after
starting my research, it was out of my picture,” he
told reporters in Tokyo.
“I don’t feel comfortable competing with many
people, and instead I find it more enjoyable
doing something nobody else is doing,” Ohsumi
added. “In a way, that’s what science is all about,
and the joy of finding something inspires me.”
The prize is worth 8 million kronor, or $930,000.
Ohsumi was honored for work he did in the
1990s. Nobel judges often award discoveries
made decades ago, to make sure they have
stood the test of time.
Working in yeast, Ohsumi developed a way to
identify key genes involved in autophagy and
went on to discover the first genes known to
play a role. He then showed how autophagy is
controlled by specific proteins and complexes
of proteins.

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143

“He actually unraveled which are the
components which actually perform this whole
process,” said Rune Toftgard, chairman of the
Nobel Assembly.
Scientists were aware of autophagy before
Ohsumi’s work, but they “didn’t know what it
did, they didn’t know how it was controlled
and they didn’t know what it was relevant for,”
said David Rubinsztein, deputy director of the
Institute for Medical Research at the University
of Cambridge.
Ohsumi’s work “opened the door to a field,” he
said. “It provided tools to the whole world to
start trying to understand how autophagy is
important” in mammals. Now “we know that
autophagy is important for a host of important
mammalian functions.”
For example, scientists said, it springs into
action to provide energy when the body is
running short on nutrients, such as when a
person skips meals or a newborn has not ye
begun breastfeeding.

144

Image: Shizuo Kambayashi

145

Autophagy also removes proteins that clump
together abnormally in brain cells, which is
what happens in conditions like Huntington’s
and Parkinson’s diseases and some forms of
dementia. Animal studies suggest that boosting
autophagy can ease and delay such diseases, said
Rubinsztein, whose lab is pursuing that approach.
“As time goes on, people are finding connections
with more and more diseases,” he said.
In Tokyo, Ohsumi said many details of autophagy
are yet to be understood and he hopes younger
scientists join him in looking for the answers.
“There is no finish line for science. When I find
an answer to one question, another question
comes up. I have never thought I have solved all
the questions,” he said. “So I have to keep asking
questions to yeast.”
It was the 107th award in the medicine category
since the first Nobel Prizes were handed out
in 1905.
Last year’s prize was shared by three scientists
who developed treatments for malaria and other
tropical diseases.
The announcements continue with physics
on Tuesday, chemistry on Wednesday and the
Nobel Peace Prize on Friday. The economics and
literature awards will be announced next week.
The awards will be handed out at ceremonies in
Stockholm and Oslo on Dec. 10, the anniversary
of prize founder Alfred Nobel’s death in 1896.

Online:
http://www.nobelprize.org

146

Image: Junko Ozaki

147

148

GOOGLE GETS
AGGRESSIVE WITH
NEW PHONES,
OTHER GADGETS

Google ratcheted up its rivalry with Apple and
Amazon by unveiling new smartphones, an
internet-connected speaker that channels a
digital assistant, and other gadgets the company
hopes to make indispensable.
The devices announced Tuesday are part of
Google’s bold move to design and sell its own
hardware, instead of just supplying Android
and other software for other companies to
make products. Google’s previous attempts at
hardware have had limited distribution and
included such high-profile flops as its internetconnected Glass headgear.
This time around, Google is betting that it
can design software and hardware to work
seamlessly with each other. That’s an art Apple
mastered over the past 15 years as it turned out
finely crafted iPods, iPhones, iPads and Macs.
Image: Eric Risberg

149

Borrowing another page from Apple’s book,
Google is backing its expanded product lineup
with the biggest marketing campaign in its
18-year history. The company isn’t disclosing
how much it will spend, but made it clear the
ads touting products “Made by Google” will be
ubiquitous during the next few months.
“They have done some advertising in the past,
but it’s never been with this kind of ‘let us take
care of everything for you’ way,” Gartner analyst
Brian Blau said. “This is more like Apple’s way of
doing things.”

150

GADGETS ON PARADE
Google executives showed off a series of
gadgets in rapid succession in San Francisco
on Tuesday.
The new Pixel phones, starting at $650, are
aimed squarely at Apple’s iPhone and could also
siphon sales from the biggest manufacturer of
Android-powered phones, Samsung.
Android now powers more than 80 percent of
the smartphones sold around the world. But
Samsung has increasingly been adding more
of its own software, including its own mobile
wallet, on its phones.
Analysts warned that Google’s increased
emphasis on its own branded devices runs the
risk of alienating Samsung, as well as LG and
other longtime partners that make Android
gadgets. Google, though, emphasized it still
plans to work with other manufacturers, even as
it tries to become a bigger player in hardware.
Meanwhile, Google’s new Home speaker
represents a counterpunch to Amazon’s Echo, a
similar device that has become a big hit since its
release about 15 months ago. Google Home will
cost $129, undercutting Echo by $50.
Google also announced a virtual-reality headset
called Daydream View, a new Wi-Fi router and an
update to the company’s Chromecast device for
streaming video.

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152

THE PHONE
Available in two sizes, the Pixel phones replace
Google’s previous foray into smartphones with
a Nexus brand introduced six years ago. Google
never hailed Nexus as its own phone, but
instead positioned it as an example of how it
believed the Android system worked best.
In promoting the Pixels, Google highlighted a
camera it says trumps the latest iPhone, a longlasting battery and a dedicated headphone
jack - a staple that Apple eliminated from the
iPhones released last month. And while past
Google phones primarily relied on sales through
Google’s online Play store, the Pixel will also be
sold by Verizon in the U.S.
Analyst Patrick Moorhead of Moor Insights &
Strategy said in an email that Google was smart
to emphasize the performance of the new
smartphone cameras, as “consumers care about
this a lot.” But he said other features in the new
phones didn’t seem that much different from
what Samsung and Apple have offered in their
latest devices.

153

SMART ASSISTANT
The phones and speaker will serve as a
showcase for Google’s digital helper, Google
Assistant. The helper will respond to spoken
questions such as “How do you remove wine
stains out of the carpet?” and commands to
control the volume of the television and other
home appliances with internet connections.
Google Assistant escalates the company’s battle
against Apple, which offers a virtual helping
hand through Siri, and Amazon, whose Alexa
concierge resides in Echo and other devices.
Google believes its assistant will be
more knowledgeable, more personable
and more versatile than the competition.
Its confidence stems from the more than
70 billion facts that it has stockpiled in a
database that it calls a “knowledge graph,”
as well as the ability of its dominant search
engine to quickly scan the web to retrieve a
specific piece of information.

154

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156

Google CEO Sundar Pichai boasts that the
assistant will draw upon the company’s
advances in artificial intelligence to deliver “a
personal Google for each and every user.” The
artificial intelligence programming is designed
to learn more about the person using it with
each interaction, according to Google.
That’s one reason why Google eventually
wants the assistant on more devices, though
the company currently doesn’t have plans
to build directly into Android the way Siri
is automatically included in Apple’s mobile
software. Instead, Google will allow other
device makers to include the assistant in
their products if they want, beginning early
next year.
“Search has been Google’s golden ticket for
the past 20 years of the internet, and now they
are hoping artificial intelligence will become
the next golden ticket,” Blau said.
Still, while Google showed its new Assistant
performing a variety of impressive tasks,
Moorhead cautioned that similar services such
as Siri and Microsoft’s Cortana haven’t fulfilled
their early promises to ingrain themselves into
people’s lives.

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158

CLOSER (FEAT. HALSEY)

The Chainsmokers

HEATHENS
TwenTy one piloTs

THIS TOWN

niall horan

ALL WE KNOW (FEAT. PHOEBE RYAN)

The Chainsmokers

GOLD

kiiara

LET ME LOVE YOU (FEAT. JUSTIN BIEBER)

DJ snake

STARVING (FEAT. ZEDD)

hailee sTeinfelD & Grey

JUJU ON THAT BEAT (TZ ANTHEM)

Zay hilfiGerrr & Zayion mCCall

BLUE AIN’T YOUR COLOR

keiTh Urban

COLD WATER (FEAT. JUSTIN BIEBER & MØ)

maJor laZer

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160

22, A MILLION

bon iver

NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL MUSIC, VOL. 59

varioUs arTisTs

KEEP ME SINGING

van morrison

BEAUTIFUL SURRENDER

JonaThan DaviD & melissa helser

BLURRYFACE
TwenTy one piloTs

TRAVELLER

Chris sTapleTon

ILLUMINATE (DELUXE)

shawn menDes

REMEMBER US TO LIFE (DELUXE)

reGina spekTor

THIS IS ACTING

sia

THEY DON’T KNOW

Jason alDean

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162

FOREVER COUNTRY

arTisTs of Then, now & forever

THIS TOWN (LIVE, 1 MIC 1 TAKE)

niall horan

BLUE AIN’T YOUR COLOR

keiTh Urban

PERFECT ILLUSION

laDy GaGa

CAN’T STOP THE FEELING!

JUsTin Timberlake

THE GREATEST

sia

SETTING THE WORLD ON FIRE (WITH P!NK)

kenny Chesney

THIS GIRL
(KUNGS VS. COOKIN’ ON 3 BURNERS)

kUnGs & Cookin’ on 3 bUrners

YONCÉ

beyonCé

VICE

miranDa lamberT

163

164

SEA CHANGE

maDam seCreTary, season 3

LIPSTICK

QUanTiCo, season 2

THE OTHER C WORD

fear The walkinG DeaD, season 2

WRATH

fear The walkinG DeaD, season 2

FOLIE A DEUX

elemenTary, season 5

NORTH

fear The walkinG DeaD, season 2

THE FIRST DAY

DesiGnaTeD sUrvivor, season 1

CATASTROPHE AND THE CURE

Greyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s anaTomy, season 13

MATO (#66)

The blaCklisT, season 4

BONDING AND BONDAGE

rob & Chyna, season 1

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166

TWO BY TWO

niCholas sparks

MISSING

James paTTerson

THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN

paUla hawkins

BEAUTIFUL

ChrisTina laUren

THE TRESPASSER

Tana frenCh

MAGNUS CHASE AND THE GODS OF
ASGARD, BOOK 2: THE HAMMER OF THOR

riCk riorDan

WINTER STORMS

elin hilDerbranD

SWEETEST TABOO

J. kenner

HOME

harlan Coben

TODAY WILL BE DIFFERENT

maria semple

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168

OREGON
TEENâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S BANDAGE
INVENTION WOWS
GOOGLE JUDGES

An Oregon teenager has invented a bandage
that can tell doctors when it needs to be
changed, impressing Google judges and
securing a $15,000 scholarship.
Anushka Naiknaware, 13, placed in the top
eight in an international science contest run by
Google. She won the Lego Education Builder
Award, which included the scholarship, a free
trip to Lego world headquarters in Denmark
and a year of entrepreneurship mentoring from
a Lego executive, reported the Oregonian/
OregonLive (http://bit.ly/2cQeemn ).
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170

Large wounds must be kept moist to promote
healing, but changing bandages too often
to check moisture levels can make things
worse. To solve that problem, Naiknaware, a
seventh-grader at Stoller Middle School in
Portland, designed and tested a bandage that is
embedded with tiny monitors. They can sense
moisture levels and allow medical workers to
determine whether the dressing has dried out
enough that the bandage needs to be changed.
Naiknaware created the sensors by printing a
fractal pattern using ink containing graphene
nanoparticles. The particles can accurately
detect when moisture levels have dropped.
Google judges named her one of 16 global
finalists, all of whom traveled to the company’s
headquarters in Mountain View, California,
to present their project. Naiknaware was the
youngest person to win one of the global prizes.
She told the Oregonian that being able to
interact, debate and play with 19 other curious
teen scientists from across the world was one
of her favorite life experiences. Another, she
said, was the moment she saw her bandage
prototype work.
“My idea became a physical, tangible reality,”
said Naiknaware.
She said she hopes to use her Lego mentor’s
advice to figure out how to get U.S. Food and
Drug Administration approval for her bandages
so a company can produce them at scale.

Information from:
The Oregonian/OregonLive,
www.oregonlive.com
171

ERICSSON CUTS
3,000 JOBS IN
SWEDEN, REDUCES
OPERATIONS

Ericsson said Tuesday it will cut 3,000 jobs
in Sweden, or nearly 20 percent of its local
workforce, and will downsize operations at
several plants as part of its global plan to cut
costs by 9 billion kronor ($1 billion) in 2017.
The Swedish networks company employs
115,000 people globally, of which 16,000 in
Sweden, and said the layoffs are a necessary part
of its transformation to meet â&#x20AC;&#x153;fast technology
shifts and the digitalization of the telecom
industry.â&#x20AC;? The cuts will be made in research and
development, sales and administration.
The new demands will also create new jobs,
Ericsson said, with plans to recruit 1,000 people
in Sweden during the next three years in the
R&D sector.
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Image: Maja Suslin

173

CEO Jan Frykhammar said the company would
continue to have “a strong focus” on research
and development in Sweden. He described the
cost cutting measures as “necessary to secure
Ericsson’s long term competitiveness as well as
technology and services leadership.”
In addition to the overall $1 billion cost cuts,
Ericsson has said it would double previously
announced savings of operating expenses
“to reach a reduced run rate of operating
expenses of 53 billion kronor during the
second half of 2017.”
Ericsson, one of the world’s leading mobile
network operators, has been struggling to
improve earnings amid tightening competition.
It sacked its previous CEO in July to find a
new leader “to drive the next phase in
Ericsson’s development.”
The company’s share price was virtually
unchanged at 61.65 kronor in morning trading
in Stockholm.
Ericsson employs people in 180 countries and
has 2.5 billion network subscribers. It has 16,000
employees in Sweden.